The Witness Chronicles, 6/17/25

Now he is changing mind every hour

Nice out but getting muggy. Photo by D R on Unsplash

I Can’t Keep Up With the Flips and Flops

Trump is getting more and more undependable

We are now seeing day to day 180s from the President on nearly every topic, issue, and action. He goes to the G7 meeting and abruptly leaves to oversee the war in Iran, or so he says, though many speculate he did not like the obvious lack of respect from our allies.

Watching Canada’s Mark Carney do a press conference with Trump as he does off on a long string of crazy talk, we see a sane man visually uncomfortable sharing a stage with the American President.

As for that war in Iran, one minute we know nothing about the attacks, then we are involved and then we aren’t. Frankly I’ve lost track and I’m sure I’m not alone. And don’t ask me to explain what is going on with tariffs because I have no idea and I’m not alone.

And in the space of a day we learn ICE will not go after farmworkers and other essential jobs with many illegals, but then that changed and now they are fair targets, at least last time I checked. That flipflop appears to reflect the internal conflicts going on between Cabinet members and the fanatical Trump believers in the White House.

One thing that is clear is the scary notion that Stephen Miller appears to be behind our immigration policy, expanding his White Suprematist isolationist beliefs to the point where he wants dozens more countries banned from coming here, notably majority people of color nations. Trump seems content to let him run amuck on his own while Trump rages over his massive military parade failing as millions of Americans took to the streets to protest his authoritarian power grabs.

No king indeed. In fact he was exposed as the emperor with no clothes as he helplessly was forced to watch a lackluster parade attended by scatterings of spectators. Despite his spokespeople touting wildly exaggerated attendance numbers it was obvious that very few showed up.

Of course this led to unhinged decisions and statements including that he might deploy military forces to cities where there was potential for unrest, which basically means everywhere. This would be terrifying coming from a more focused President, but with this one we know something else will come along in the next minute to distract Trump.

It no exaggeration to say that he no longer has any idea what he is doing and is completely in reactive mode, shifting gears constantly with no policy or responsible advisors to keep him on track. He had responsible advisors in his first administration but they left one by one as he repeatedly ignored them. Not a problem this time around as he cannot get experienced people to work with him. Can’t blame them.

So, just months into a four year voyage in a ship of fools, we have a real problem. To me the most telling story from the past week or so was Trump’s speech to a group of soldiers in which he ranted and raved about opponents while they cheered and booed. Not only wildly inappropriate but that audience was hand picked to ensure there were no dissenters, and Btw, no fat people, other than Trump.

To me that was a clear sign of how low we have descended and how quickly everything has unraveled. No one knows what is going on from minute to minute, which in itself is the root of the larger problem; the one thing Trump knows how to do, which is sow uncertainty. We have a President who not only lies constantly but does not seem to know what is true and no longer cares.

The really scary thing is if he is in mental decline, as many believe, we have few options as long as the Republican Party marches in lockstep behind him, zombie-like. There doesn’t seem to be anything he can do that will break that hold on most of the government. Even the reality that they may face huge electoral losses next year isn’t even enough to break the spell.

Writing about this stuff is getting more and more challenging and head spinning. Just keeping up with it is basically bewildering. I write because it helps me sort out where things stand and what I think, but that is getting tougher because, like most of us, my mind follows some kind of logic and there is no logic in any of this.

There used to be a news show that declared This is the Week That Was. I think they’d have a pretty challenging time these days when it is more like this is the day that was, or even hour that is. If that sentence is confusing it is by intent because all the things emanating from the White House are confusing and subject to change at any given moment.

And that is the crux of it all, the confusion. Until recently I thought it was intentional, and serving as cover for the nefarious things going on behind the scenes, but no. They are not bothering to hide anything, including their own corruption, racism, hate, and incompetence. Yet somehow we still have a large number of Americans who feel they must support this man.

But those numbers are dropping daily and Trump knows it. It was displayed graphically on Saturday as the media highlighted the disparity between the scant crowds at the Trump parade and the massive countrywide No Kings protests.

The problem with Trump getting more and more unpopular is its effect on his already shaky decision making. There is nothing worse for a narcissist than losing the adoration they constantly require. His increasingly erratic behavior is showing early signs of panic, panic which is likely to increase.

So the only predictable near future is more unpredictable actions and contradictions, which has the ongoing effect of paralyzing the economy across the country.

Information is power and sharing it is resistance.

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Martin